CHARLOTTE COUNTY, Fla. — Brittany Himes is asking for video surveillance in special needs classrooms after she says a paraprofessional inside of a special needs classroom assaulted her six-year-old son.
"Why are there no cameras? there should be a camera," Brittany Himes, whose son attends Meadow Park Elementary told board members at Monday Nights board meeting.
Those paraprofessionals are special needs students' personal aides, they help students with tasks throughout their daily curriculum and grow a trusting relationship with them, "When I went to go pick him up, I knew something was wrong, he was terrified and hiding in a corner," Himes told me as she went back to that day.
Himes says there's no reason her son should have been kicked in the chest by a paraprofessional and she’s now standing up to the school board so this doesn’t happen to any other kid. Himes says the aid is claiming self-defense.
"A para (paraprofessional) kicked him in the chest, these pictures are the day of, inside the school, and two days later," Pictures that Himes provided to Fox 4 were the same ones she showed board members during public comment on Monday night.
At the beginning of the board meeting, board members did let the audience know that they would not engage during public comment and their silence was not to be taken offensively, while Himes had two other supporters she said that she could see the face of board members as they understood the severity of this claim.
"There were a few people that came to me and said the faces they saw the board members make said it all," many of them wide-eyed and taken aback as Himes showed the photos, "If there are bruises like this, how is someone not fired?"
"He still has 12 years here and he was basically treated like an animal, again," Hime added that the paraprofessional should be fired as she walked away and left the photos behind for others to see.
Fox 4 did reach out to the school district and they would only confirm it is an ongoing investigation they also did not provide an update on the aide’s employment status.
Himes has since gotten a lawyer and is now waiting to hear what the state attorney's office has to say about the case.
